I was strictly prohibited by the doctor from writing; but in spite of his orders I coaxed Soeur Berthe to let me have pen and ink. Her consternation was great when she saw me fainting from the exertion. One letter I wrote to my mother while my hand was held on the paper, placed on a desk before me; so that I had only, as it were, to form the characters. I used to write a sentence or two every day, and so put them together bit by bit. I compiled several commonplace and uninteresting productions, and sent them home in great glee at the success of my performance. I could not guess how startled they would be at receiving these curious epistles, some of which afterwards came back into my hands. They resolved to send my brother Arthur to fetch me home; and he travelled immediately to Orleans, where he received a hearty welcome from M. and Madame Proust and my other friends. I insert as an Appendix, from the journal which my brother kept, the impressions made on us both by a visit we paid to the field of Coulmiers. It was my last view of the scenes in which I had taken part. My brother arrived on 8th April, and on the 21st we bade farewell to our home in the Rue Royale, and the friends who had made it such, and set out on our journey to Ireland. CHAPTER XXXI. AN APPENDIX.--M. AND MADAME COLOMBIER.--VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF COULMIERS.--THE SOLE FRENCH VICTORY.--CONCLUSION. (_From Arthur Ryan's Diary, Wednesday, 19th April._) Our déjeûner had not long been over when a carriage drove up, and Charlie bade me prepare for a drive with some friends into the country. We wished M. and Madame Proust good-bye for the day, and stepped into the carriage, where our new host and hostess were awaiting us. M. and Madame Colombier welcomed me cordially as the brother of their friend, and I was not long in their company before I knew how truly they had been such to him. M. Colombier had been a Papal Zouave, but, on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, had joined the ranks of his countrymen. A middle-aged man with a frank warm manner, and evidently very proud of his wife,--as well he might be. I have seen but little of men or women; but I fancy that many years of experience may fail to remove Madame Colombier from the place she gained that day in my estimation. She was a heroine, and, what is still rarer, a humble heroine. Being a Canadian she spoke English very fairly; and as we drove along she told us many stories of her war experiences, and with so much gaiety that I felt it hard to believe those experiences had been so often bitter ones to her and her husband. Privations, loss of property, personal danger, all were related as if she were inventing and not recording; all were jested about whenever they affected only herself. But when she spoke of the sufferings of others, of her husband's danger, of the poor soldiers whom she had lodged and tended to the last, then her woman's heart revealed itself, and showed that though gay it was